Colorado state land public access????

[myshootinstinks]

This may be the wrong forum to post this so if it gets deleted or moved its okay with me.
Due to aging parents we may need to move to Colorado for a few years. CO has lots of elk, a good deer population, beautiful scenery and nice weather. So, naturally I look into public land access prospects for hunting. I open up ONx to see lots of "State Trust Lands", particularly on the plains. 80% of it also says "no public access". I've not seen state lands closed to this degree in any other western state.

 

[Monster Toms]

In Colorado, State trust lands can be leased for grazing, it's up to the lessee to allow access.

 

[crashlanding]

What part of the state are you eyeing up for the move?

 

[myshootinstinks]

Colo Springs area

 

[Chadp82]

Colorado is a bad choice for hunting. (Joking - just steering people away sarcastically)

There are plenty of opportunities for over the counter archery and rifle hunts for elk. Deer is draw only.

Don't overlook the easy draws with lots of public land. By that I mean 1 or less preference points. The success rates are low but If you put in the effort there is a reason these units have a lot of tags.

There's a lot of road hunters in the OTC units, but if you are willing to walk the extra mile, you can have success.

And as mentioned some state trust lands are off limits due to leases. You will find this with BLM too.

 

[myshootinstinks]

In Colorado, State trust lands can be leased for grazing, it's up to the lessee to allow access.

Other states lease the grazing rights but the land is still ours and available to the public.

 

[cohunt]

Lots of stl is off limits in CO--- pick up one of the cpw hunting brochures-- it will tell you what stl areas are ok for hunting

What's worse is depending on the trust stipulations-- that land can be sold to developers at some time.

I have a local block of stl that was sold to developers-- about 800 houses are going to be built on it over the next 5-10 years

Also be careful of "landlocked" blm areas--- there are blm lands that are surrounded by all private land-- the only way to hunt them is to get permission from private owners to let you pass on private roads to get to the blm land.

Cpw has online "active" maps that will help out a bit with this --- or visit a cpw office and ask-- they are usually pretty helpful

 

[myshootinstinks]

Is it publicly owned or not? If it is, hunters in CO need to challenge the state's policy. In Wyoming, as well as other Mtn states, state land is open to the public. A rancher can lease grazing rights but cannot deny access. Look at the incredible acreage in eastern CO that is owned by the state. This is crap!

 

[crashlanding]

Welcome to Colorado. Fortunately on the western side here most public land is open as long as it's not land locked but we still have plenty of issues with private land even blocking access. Not as much state land over here as there is on the front range

 

[GDKinCO]

Some/a lot? of state trust land in CO is seasonal access so perhaps OnX is reporting based on "accessible now"?
A number of years ago I was talking to a game warden about certain STL areas being inaccessible, and he told me (again - at that time) that when the leases were coming due, they were re-negotiating seasonal (hunting) access into the lease. If I remember correctly, the bargaining chip was "no seasonal access, no crop damage compensation" or something like that.
Again, that was before Wildlife department got stolen/absorbed into Parks and Circuses